The Lady in Blue Read online

  Featuring a WSP Readers Club Guide

  An elaborately woven novel of intrigue about one of America’s most curious and enduring legends—the enigma of the Lady in Blue

  In Los Angeles, Jennifer Narody has been having a series of disturbing dreams involving eerie images of a lady dressed in blue. What she doesn’t know is that this same spirit appeared to leaders of the Jumano Native American tribe in New Mexico 362 years earlier, and was linked to a Spanish nun capable of powers of “bilocation,” or the ability to be in two places simultaneously.

  Meanwhile, young journalist Carlos Albert is driven by a blinding snowstorm to the little Spanish town of Ágreda, where he stumbles upon a nearly forgotten seventeenth-century convent founded by this same legendary woman. Intrigued by her rumored powers, he delves into finding out more.

  These threads, linked by an apparent suicide, eventually lead Carlos to Cardinal Baldi, to an American spy, and ultimately to Los Angeles, where Jennifer Narody unwittingly holds the key to the mystery that the Catholic Church, the U.S. Defense Department, and the journalist are each determined to decipher—the Lady in Blue.

  “The haunting and evocative tale of the triumph of modern spirit and science over a 400-year-old conspiracy.” —Katherine Neville, bestselling author of The Eight and The Magic Circle

  “[An] intriguing paranormal puzzler.” —Publishers Weekly

  JAVIER SIERRA, whose works have been translated into thirty-five languages, is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel The Secret Supper. A native of Teruel, Spain, he currently lives in Málaga.

  WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS

  Cover design by Jae Song

  Author photograph by Eva Pastor

  Register online at www.SimonandSchuster.com for more information on this and other great books.

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  Critical acclaim for internationally bestselling author Javier Sierra

  The Lady in Blue

  “Javier Sierra’s groundbreaking historical research opens our eyes to a world we thought we knew, and revisits, in a surprising way, the devastating clash between Catholic Europe and the far more ancient world of the American Southwest.”

  —Katherine Neville, bestselling author of The Eight and The Magic Circle

  “This fantastic story imparts an alternative, expanded view that we do not usually find in our academic, politically motivated history books. This is what Javier Sierra brings to us in his most recent novel, The Lady in Blue. Read this book before it’s made into a screenplay. You will be happy you did.”

  —Skip Atwater, president and executive director of The Monroe Institute, an organization dedicated to working with audio sound patterns in the exploration of human consciousness

  “Javier Sierra has done it again! His last book, The Secret Supper, left readers wanting more and Javier has given them just what they have been waiting for with The Lady in Blue! Each chapter keeps you completely captivated and at times makes you look over your shoulder looking for the spirit of the Spanish nun. I’m completely in love with this book, and it’s a must read!”

  —MaryRose Occhino, author of Sign of the Dove and radio show host of Angels On Call, on Sirius Stars 102

  “Javier Sierra’s The Lady in Blue is an intriguing ‘eye-opener’ intertwining historical and scientific research with his own experience of surprising synchronicities. . . . An exciting read!”

  —Margaret Starbird, author of The Woman with the Alabaster Jar and Mary Magdalene, Bride in Exile

  “Sierra makes it all entertaining, intermixing history, churchly intrigue, folklore, spycraft, musicology and conspiracy journalism.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Has all those ingredients that make the page-turner genre so much fun. . . . This is the finest of thriller pulp, so your sole command here is: Keep reading.”

  —Lexington Herald-Leader

  “An intriguing story that spans centuries, countries, and cultures.”

  —The Catholic Observer

  The Secret Supper

  “No mere Da Vinci Code redux, this Spanish bestseller fuses an ecclesiastical whodunit with an A–Z guide to Neoplatonist philosophy and Renaissance symbology. Sierra is a more sophisticated writer than Dan Brown, and he offers fresh perspective on the Renaissance mind.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Offers a new way of interpreting The Last Supper. Sierra’s book, already a bestseller in Europe, is a fresh contribution to the Da Vinci industry.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “For fans of religious conspiracy and reinterpretations of religious history.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Javier Sierra’s take on Da Vinci is much sharper, more focused, and more rewarding.”

  —(New York) Daily News

  “A fascinating yarn and very well told.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Sierra’s narrative moves smoothly, fluidly.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Sierra emerges as a strong contender in historical fiction with his . . . well-crafted book.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  Washington Square Press

  A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

  are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance

  to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1998, 2005, 2007 by Javier Sierra

  Translation copyright © 2007 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Translated by James Graham

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions

  thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address

  Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department,

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  First Washington Square Press trade paperback edition June 2008

  WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS and colophon are registered trademarks of

  Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Dana Sloan

  Maps © 2007 by handmademaps.com

  ISBN: 9781416558378 (eBook)

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Atria Books edition as follows:

  Sierra, Javier, date.

  [Dama Azul. English]

  The lady in blue : a novel/by Javier Sierra.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  I. Title.

  PQ6719.I54D3613 2007

  863'.7—dc22

  2007002602

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-3223-1

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-3223-4

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-3226-2 (pbk)

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-3226-9 (pbk)

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  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Four
teen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Post Scriptum

  Acknowledgments

  Dramatis Personae

  Benavides’s Memorial (1630)

  Translation of “The Memorial of Fray Alonso De Benavides, 1630”

  Brief Chronology of Actual Events

  A Readers Club Guide

  Questions and Topics for Discussion

  A Conversation with Javier Sierra

  Tips to Enhance Your Book Group

  To the nuns at the Concepción de Ágreda monastery, in memory of that providential encounter on April 14, 1991

  And to Carol Sabick and J. J. Benítez, opportune “instruments” of the Programmer

  Le hasard, c’est peut-être le pseudonyme de Dieu, quant il ne veut pas signer.

  [Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he does not wish to sign his work.]

  —THÉOPHILE GAUTIER, LA CROIX DE BERNY

  Bilocation, n., the fact or power of being in two places at the same time.

  —THE COMPACT EDITION OF THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY

  ONE

  VENICE, ITALY

  SPRING 1991

  Treading with a light step, Father Giuseppe Baldi left the Piazza San Marco at sunset.

  As was his custom, he walked along the canal to the Riva degli Schiavoni, where he took the first vaporetto headed to San Giorgio Maggiore. The island that appeared on every postcard of Venice was once upon a time the property of his religious order, and the old priest always regarded it with nostalgia. Time had brought many changes. Omnia mutantur. Everything was subject to change these days. Even a faith with two thousand years of history behind it.

  Baldi consulted his wristwatch, undid the last button of his habit, and, while scanning the boat for a seat close to the window, took the opportunity to clean the lenses of his tiny, wire-rimmed glasses. “Pater noster qui es in caelis . . . ,” he murmured in Latin.

  With his glasses on, the Benedictine watched as the city of four hundred bridges stretched out before him, tinged a deep orange.

  “. . . sanctificetur nomen tuum . . .”

  Without interrupting his prayer, the priest admired the evening as he glanced discreetly to either side.

  “Everything as it should be,” he thought to himself.

  The vaporetto, the familiar water bus used by Venetians to get from place to place, was almost empty at this hour. Only a few Japanese and three scholarship students whom Baldi recognized as being from the Giorgio Cini Foundation seemed interested in the ride.

  “Why am I still doing this?” he asked himself. “Why am I still watching the other six-o’clock passengers out of the corners of my eyes, as if I was going to find that one of them was carrying a journalist’s camera? Haven’t I already spent enough years holed up on this island, far from them?”

  Fourteen minutes later, the water bus dropped him off on an ugly concrete dock. A gust of cold air burst in as he opened the cabin door, and everyone braced against the night air. No one paid any attention as he disembarked.

  In his heart of hearts, Baldi cherished his undisturbed life on the island. When he arrived at his cell, he would wash, change his shoes, eat dinner with the community, and then bury himself in reading or correcting exams. He had followed that daily ritual since he had arrived at the abbey nineteen years before. Nineteen years of peace and tranquillity, certainly. But he was always on guard, waiting for a call, a letter, or an unannounced visit. That was his punishment. The kind of load that is never lifted from one’s shoulders.

  Baldi restrained himself from giving in to his obsession.

  Was there a more agreeable life than the one his studies afforded him? He knew the answer was no. His various duties as professor of pre-polyphony at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory allowed him the peace of mind that had always eluded him as a young man. His students were hardworking. They attended his lectures with moderate enthusiasm and listened as he explained the music of the first millennium, spicing his lectures with interesting anecdotes. In short, they respected him. The faculty admired him as well, even though he sometimes missed classes because he was absorbed in his research.

  And yet, such a stress-free environment never managed to distract him from his other pursuits. They were so “confidential” and long-standing that he had rarely even mentioned them to anyone.

  Baldi had come to San Giorgio in 1972, exiled for crimes owing to music. The Cini Foundation offered him more than he would have dared to request from his superior: one of the best libraries in Europe; a convention center that on more than one occasion had hosted UNESCO conferences; and two scholarly institutions dedicated to Venetian music and ethnomusicology that so intoxicated him. To a certain extent, it was logical that the Benedictines had made the effort to create that paradise of musicology at San Giorgio. Who if not the brothers of the Order of Saint Benedict would busy themselves with such devotion to that ancient art? Was it not Saint Benedict himself who, once he had established the rules for his order in the sixth century, went on to create the fundamentals of modern musical science?

  Baldi had studied the subject thoroughly. He was the first, for example, to appreciate that Saint Benedict’s decree, which required all members of his order to attend eight religious services a day, was based entirely on music. A fascinating secret. In fact, the prayers that he and his brothers recited daily were inspired by the “modes” still employed in the composition of melodies. Baldi proved that matins (the prayers said at two in the morning during wintertime) corresponded to the note do, and lauds, recited at dawn, corresponded to re. The offices of the first, the third, and the sixth hours, performed at six, nine, and twelve noon, corresponded to mi, fa, and sol. And the hour of strongest light, none, at three in the afternoon, corresponded to la, while the prayers recited at dusk, during the setting of the sun, corresponded to ti.

  That was the class that had made him famous among his students. “Notes and hours are related!” he would boom from his podium. “To pray and to compose are parallel activities! Music is the true language of God!”

  And yet Baldi the old soldier had still other discoveries hidden in his study. His thesis was astounding. He believed, for example, that the ancients not only
knew harmony and applied it, via mathematics, to music, but that harmony was capable of provoking altered states of consciousness that permitted priests and initiates in the classical world to gain access to “superior” realms of reality. He defended his idea over the course of decades, doing battle with those who asserted that such sensations of spiritual elevation were always brought about by means of hallucinatory drugs, sacred mushrooms, or other psychotropic substances.

  “And how exactly did they ‘use’ music?” Baldi would ask rhetorically, becoming more animated. He admitted that for the wise men of history it was enough to develop a mental “wavelength” adequate for the reception of information from “far away.” It was said that in this state, those adept in magic could reawaken any moment in the past, no matter how remote. Put another way, according to Baldi, music modulated the frequency of our brain waves, stimulating centers of perception capable of navigating through time.

  But these techniques, he explained with great resignation, had been lost.

  While many questioned Baldi’s outlandish ideas, even the fiercest polemics had in no way soured his jovial and friendly outlook. His silver hair, athletic deportment, and honest face gave him the look of an irresistible conqueror. No one seriously believed he was seventy-five years old. In fact, had it not been for his vow of chastity, Baldi would have broken the hearts of many of his female students.

  That day, serenely unaware of the events that were about to unfold, Baldi smiled as he entered the Benedictine residence, walking at his usual lively pace. He hardly even noticed Brother Roberto waiting for him in the doorway, looking as if he had something urgent to tell him.

  TWO

  GRAN QUIVIRA, NEW MEXICO

  362 YEARS EARLIER

  Sakmo fell to his knees, a prisoner of fear. His muscular frame crumpled to the ground as shadows took possession of his soul. No matter how much he opened his eyes or rubbed them, the young warrior could not discern so much as a single strand of light. An indescribable vision had blinded him. Now he was left in darkness, alone at the cleft in the rock sacred to his tribe. The intimate terror that had dimmed his sight had also left him unable to raise a shout. Never in all his nights of keeping watch over the village had he confronted anything like it.